Thread: Supreme Court hears immigrant's ID theft case

Supreme Court hears immigrant's ID theft case


By MARK SHERMAN, 2 hrs 25 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, an undocumented worker from Mexico, made a curious and undeniably bad decision. After working under an assumed name for six years, he decided to use his real name and exchanged one set of phony identification numbers for another.

The change made his employer suspicious and the authorities were called in. The old numbers were made up, but the new ones he bought happened to belong to real people. Federal prosecutors said that was enough to label Flores-Figueroa an identity thief.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on prosecutors' aggressive use of a new law that was intended to strengthen efforts to combat identity theft. In at least hundreds of cases last year, workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up.

The government has used the charge, which carries a mandatory two-year minimum prison term, to persuade people to plead guilty to the lesser immigration charges and accept prompt deportation. Many of those undocumented workers had been arrested in immigration raids.

The case hinges on how the justices resolve this question: Does it matter whether someone using a phony ID knows that it belongs to someone else?

The government, backed by victims' rights groups, says no. The "havoc wrecked on the victim's life is the same either way," said Stephen Masterson, a Los Angeles-based lawyer, in his brief for the victims' rights groups.

On the other side, Flores-Figueroa and more than 20 immigrants' rights groups, defense lawyers and privacy experts say that the law Congress passed in 2004 was aimed at the identity thief who gains access to people's private information to drain their accounts and run up bills in their name. Surveys estimate that more than 8 million people in the United States are victims of identity theft each year.

Flores-Figueroa acknowledges he used fraudulent documents to get and keep his job at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. But he "had no intention of stealing anyone's identity," his lawyers said in their brief to the court. He traveled to Chicago and bought numbers from someone who trades in counterfeit IDs.

Had he been caught while using the fictitious name and numbers that went with it, he could not have been charged with the more serious offense.

Federal appeals courts in St. Louis, which ruled against Flores-Figueroa, Atlanta and Richmond, Va., have come down on the government's side. Appeals courts based in Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have ruled for defendants.

The government's use of identity theft charges in immigration cases was on full display in last year's raid on a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. Authorities charged 270 undocumented workers with identity theft, including its threat of two years in prison.

Chuck Roth, litigation director for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, called the charge "a bludgeon" that was intended to elicit guilty pleas to lesser charges. Roth's group joined one of the briefs supporting Flores-Figueroa.

All 270 workers accepted plea deals in which they also agreed not to contest deportation.

An additional 100 workers arrested in the same raid were using unassigned numbers and faced charges with little prospect of prison time.

The case is Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., 08-108.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090222/ap_ ... tity_theft

This is an example of the trash they want to Amnesty into our country.

workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up.

I DON'T CARE. The end result of their "made up numbers" is the same. An innoscent American was harmed by their actions and they deserve to be protected and the illegal alien deserves to be punished. Otherwise, their defense will be we didn't know, we just made the number up. This is not an acceptable defense.

Anyone using someone's identification numbers is comitting identity theft, regardless of immigration status. Don't create a special loophole for illegal aleins.

Dixie

IF the person using the numbers KNOWS the numbers do not belong to them it is theft.

It doesn't matter if it's a fictitious number or a stolen number that belongs to an actual person! Your submitting a number that does not belong to YOU in an effort to defraud an employer and ultimately an American citizen by stealing a job that you have no legal right to!

This is simply a case of the pro-illegal advocates attempting to split hairs with serious ramifications. E-VERIFY would eliminate all of this. We have the solution and our own government refuses to make it the law!!

There is a truth here the IA defenders refuse to acknowledge.

The IA's KNEW it is Illegal to work here without proper papers and they KNEW buying a false ID to get a job is against our laws.

Do citizens who break our laws get a pass if they use the "I did not know" excuse ? Hell NO !!!!!!!!!

A tad off subject but not really. My brother and hundreds of his co-workers have been permently laid off from a steel plant in Ohio. Now they all, including one of my brothers (with over 25 years' seniority) are stuggling to hang onto their homes while they try to find another job in this economy....and this illegal invader was working??? In a steel plant???

Originally Posted by PatrioticMe

A tad off subject but not really. My brother and hundreds of his co-workers have been permently laid off from a steel plant in Ohio. Now they all, including one of my brothers (with over 25 years' seniority) are stuggling to hang onto their homes while they try to find another job in this economy....and this illegal invader was working??? In a steel plant???

Not to add to your brothers problems, but I think you should check this out and make sure that not only your brother, but all of his co-workers see it also.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc9IGnH6 ... ture=email

Originally Posted by cayla99

Originally Posted by PatrioticMe

A tad off subject but not really. My brother and hundreds of his co-workers have been permently laid off from a steel plant in Ohio. Now they all, including one of my brothers (with over 25 years' seniority) are stuggling to hang onto their homes while they try to find another job in this economy....and this illegal invader was working??? In a steel plant???

Not to add to your brothers problems, but I think you should check this out and make sure that not only your brother, but all of his co-workers see it also.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc9IGnH6 ... ture=email

I had read about this but it's altogether another thing seeing these people; putting faces on the tragedies. Something has to be done, but what? We can't seem to get enough people on our side to march on Washington. I, for one, can't afford to get there; I'm not paid by my own tax dollars, as are those who march against our nation's people, to make the trip. I'm just barely keeping my head above water and could maybe squeek out the gas money, but not hotel room money....what do we do? Are there no patriotic American companies out there?

I'm ready to move to the hills of WVa, plant a garden, build a one room cabin and finish out my life there. I'm so sick of this.

You can post a comment about this article on the USA TODAY Online site at this link:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... t-id_N.htm